Major US telecommunications companies AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have been quietly selling access to their customers’ real-time location data, including cell tower information as well as highly precise GPS data. Through a complex network of dodgy data aggregators and middlemen companies, this data access eventually trickled down to a slew of different industries, used car salesman, landlords, and hundreds of bounty hunters, likely without your knowledge or informed consent. In this talk, based on leaked documents, sources, and first hand experience, Joseph will explain how this data industry works, the players involved, and also how the data access is available on the black market, where it can be used in any way an attacker fancies: Joseph paid a source $300 to successfully locate a phone in New York.
Joseph is an investigative reporter for Motherboard, the science and technology section of VICE. He covers cybersecurity, the digital underground, and social media platforms. Twitter: @josephfcox